M_TraditionalTaboo

Not every man who appears peaceful has mastered his aggression. Some have merely become so frightened of conflict that they mistake their own avoidance for virtue.

Some women are drawn to the untamed qualities of a man, only to discover that loving something wild requires tolerating the fact that it cannot be entirely governed by them.

I’m writing today and thought I’d share…Added some caramel color for Fall.

I have some thoughts on the "marrying your best friend" conversation: I consider my husband my best friend, and we have an extremely interwoven life. Our moods affect one another, and the rhythm of our day-to-day lives is often influenced by how the other person is feeling. My husband is a deeply feeling man. He is steady, but he is also emotionally engaged, and his emotional world occupies just as much space within our marriage as mine does. He is not always the “container” for my emotions, nor would I want him to be. I did not marry a man whose purpose is to remain unaffected by me while accommodating everything I feel. I married a man whose internal world I want to know, experience, and be influenced by, just as he is influenced by mine. That said, a man's internal world can be incredibly difficult for a woman to understand because it can be an incredibly isolating place. Within the mental health community, this level of emotional interdependence is sometimes frowned upon or hastily labeled “codependence.” While I can appreciate the concerns surrounding excessive emotional enmeshment, I also believe we have become far too comfortable pathologizing relational closeness simply because it challenges our cultural obsession with independence. Marrying your best friend can be extraordinarily rewarding, but it is also demanding. It requires a willingness to discuss, adapt, listen, and remain receptive to feedback that is not always favorable. Both people must be capable and willing to do this, every single day. There is considerable discourse, emotional exploration, and intellectual engagement involved in maintaining a relationship where two people are so intimately acquainted with one another's internal worlds. Not every relationship can support this level of integration. Some people lack the capacity, willingness, or emotional accessibility required to navigate it, whether those limitations exist within themselves, their partner, or the relationship between them. And perhaps more importantly, not everyone wants it. Marrying your best friend is a dream I have the privilege of living every day, but it is also extraordinarily intrusive. It means allowing another person access to parts of yourself that many people would prefer to keep private, and accepting that their emotional experiences will inevitably influence your own. I don't believe we should be encouraging everyone toward this kind of marriage any more than we should be discouraging those who thrive within it. There is no singular arrangement of intimacy that every marriage must aspire to. Some people want two relatively independent lives that meet in the middle. Others want two lives so deeply intertwined that the distinction between them becomes difficult to locate. Neither arrangement is inherently superior. But pretending they demand the same things of us is a mistake. It's up to each of us to decide how you want your relationship to look, but two people that want different dynamics will struggle. Be honest with yourselves.

Women are often told, “Men never change.” But as someone who works extensively with men, I can tell you that they absolutely do. In my experience, the difference often lies in whether change is demanded or inspired. Demanding that a man change as a condition of receiving your love reinforces something many men have spent their lives struggling against: the belief that love must be earned through performance, compliance, or becoming someone more acceptable to another person. For many men, this is an old and deeply embedded wound. If you want to inspire change in a man, begin by accepting who he is, as he is. From there, communicate what you desire, recognize the behaviors you appreciate, and give him something worth growing toward rather than another standard he must meet to be worthy of your affection. There is an enormous difference between a man who changes because he fears losing your love and a man who changes because your love inspires him to become better. Making your love and approval conditional may produce compliance, but don't mistake compliance for growth. You may get the behavior you demanded while destroying the very part of him that once wanted to give it freely.

A marriage can survive and heal from a great deal of hurt when both people are willing to stop adding to it. Sometimes, the first step toward saving a marriage is simply deciding not to make things worse. Not every disagreement needs another injury, nor does every painful moment need to become another wound. When two people stop contributing to the very suffering they're trying to overcome, connection finally has a chance to rebuild without being torn apart. Sometimes, healing begins not with what we do for one another, but with what we finally stop doing to one another.

You don't need to feel hopeful to make a better choice. Sometimes, the choice comes first. Hope follows.

Many women become so preoccupied with how they appear, physically or behaviorally, during sex that they struggle to fully inhabit their own sexuality. And many of these women are married. Within marriage, sexuality is a critical component of intimacy and relational satisfaction. Yet too often, a woman allows her insecurities to dictate how she believes her husband experiences her, without ever considering that his perception may be entirely different. How he actually sees you matters far more than the version of his perception you've constructed in your own mind. At some point, you must stop using his imagined judgment as an excuse for your own inhibitions and acknowledge that there may be something within yourself that needs to be confronted. Or you can begin leaning into your sexuality, allowing yourself to become the goddess your husband already sees, desires, and deserves to experience. There is something tragic about withholding parts of yourself from a man who may already find those very parts irresistible.

What people often don’t say about long-term love is that a person should go into it understanding that it is full of beautiful and romantic moments, but they often won’t look the way we were taught to believe. Many times, the most remarkable acts of romance occur in the most challenging times: The forgiveness offered quickly, the support freely given when you feel like you have little to offer in return, the kind words when you don’t feel deserving, the tenderness extended when you are particularly difficult to love, the hand that reaches for yours in the middle of an argument, the quiet sacrifices made without an expectation of recognition, and the person who continues to choose closeness when distance would be considerably easier. There is something extraordinarily romantic about being loved in the moments when we are least capable of presenting the best versions of ourselves. This is where romance comes alive in long-term love, and it is so much better than the movies. It simply requires more presence to see it.

There is an interesting contradiction in the way we admire masculine strength. We are drawn to a man's capacity to withstand adversity, yet can feel uncomfortable when confronted with the emotional experiences that made such resilience necessary. We admire the strength while quietly rejecting the suffering that cultivated it.

A little snip from my article, The Invisible Man, I just published: I sometimes wonder whether male sexuality is so readily diminished because reducing it to a base need makes the consequences of rejecting it appear less significant. If his desire is merely an appetite, then its absence can be understood as little more than an inconvenience. The emotional meaning attached to that desire becomes remarkably easy to disregard.

One of the more fascinating aspects of projection is how convincingly a person can mistake their own internal world for an accurate observation of someone else's. They are not necessarily lying about what they see. They may genuinely believe it. And perhaps that is what makes projection so difficult to confront. You are not merely challenging someone's interpretation of you. You are challenging a reality they have constructed without realizing how much of themselves they put into it.

There is a peculiar cruelty in a man becoming invisible within the very relationships he has devoted himself to sustaining. His provision is expected. His sacrifices become ordinary. His desire is reduced to appetite. His emotional needs are mistaken for simplicity. And when his loneliness eventually takes the shape of anger, resentment, or withdrawal, suddenly everyone notices him. But before you condemn the man he has become, ask yourself how much attention you paid to the man he was while he was still trying to be seen.

Men are often described as having relatively simple needs in relationships, and I think there is some truth to that. Where we go wrong is assuming simple needs must belong to a simple emotional world. A man may ask for very little while attaching extraordinary meaning to what he asks for. Respect can become inseparable from love. Loyalty from safety. Being wanted from belonging. Trust from his willingness to remain open. Simple needs do not mean shallow attachments. Sometimes quite the opposite.

I think women sometimes forget that the man they love is still becoming himself. If challenge is intricately tied to masculine identity, then there will be seasons when he does not meet life as the strongest, wisest, or most capable version of himself. Sometimes he will get it wrong. Sometimes he will doubt himself. Sometimes the man standing before the dragon will not yet possess what is required to defeat it. That does not necessarily tell you who he is. It may tell you who he has not yet become. Part of loving a man is leaving room for that becoming, rather than demanding he arrive in the relationship already perfected. Understand that some of his strength can only be forged while you are there to witness it. Supporting him through this is a gift, not an inconvenience.

I’m always grateful for the opportunity to discuss him.

I am guilty of this in one area: My Husband. I am loyal to him beyond my own personal values, should they ever misalign with his. I consider myself to be an extremely principled person. Part of my attraction to him is how principled he is… But I will compromise them for him if he needed me to.

Listen. Expectations can lead to disappointment. So, I want to make something clear… There will be no gaming shaming from me! I am so excited to play Gears of War: E-Day with my Husband that it was my first thought when I woke up this morning.